Private equity seek to take-away Restaurant Group…

Global stocks edged lower throughout the course of the day into the London close, after a mixed Asian trading session overnight.
Thomas Cook was one of the biggest losers, as it traded 19% lower at close. This was prompted by a warning issued by the tour operator regarding its trading outlook. The Holiday company reported a narrowed pretax loss in the first half of its financial year, despite revenue slipping. This was attributed to reduced demand for Turkey and Belgium.

Restaurant Group traded +5.5% after rumours circulated suggesting the restaurateur may be prime for a private equity take-out. This is in the wake of the share price almost halving over the last six months, prompted by a series of profit warnings and broker downgrades.

Many banks built on gains established yesterday, after the Federal Reserve issued a hawkish set of minutes to put a US June rate hike back on the table. This is beneficial to banks, as higher interest rates are more profitable for banking operations, so a move higher will always be advantageous, especially in a close to zero interest rate environment.

Just as Betfair odds indicated a higher chance of a non-Brexit yesterday, William Hill has moved to shorten its book on the same market, cutting odds of an ‘In’ vote to 1/5, an implied probability of 83%.

At the close European indices were down with the FTSE 100 -1.82%, with the CAC 40 -0.85%, and the DAX 30 -0.82%.